Receptive Hearts” a Sermon Delivered by Rev

“Receptive Hearts” A Sermon delivered by Rev. W. Benjamin Boswell at Myers Park Baptist Church on July 16, 2017 Proper 10 from Matthew 13:1-23

On a cold and snowy Sunday in February, the local pastor opened up the church and began to prepare for worship. Sadly, to his dismay, only one person arrived at church that morning, a farmer from the village. The pastor said, “Well, I guess because of the weather we won't have a worship service today.” But the farmer replied, “Pastor, I can’t believe you’d cancel worship after I came all the way here in the cold and snow. If only one cow shows up on the farm at feeding time, I still feed it.” “You're right” replied the pastor, “We should proceed with the service.” Inspired by the farmer’s dedication, the preacher preached like he’d never preached before. He preached his entire manuscript and beyond. He preached from Genesis all the way through Revelation. After the service was over he stood at the door, shook the farmer’s hand, and said, “Thank you for coming to church today. What did you think of that sermon?” The Farmer thought for a minute and said, “Well pastor, if I go out to feed the cows and only one shows up, I still feed it, but I don't feed it the whole load!”

Our text this morning, from the gospel of Matthew, includes the story of a farmer who went out to sow seeds. Matthew tells us Jesus told this story to a great crowd of people who gathered around him in the town of Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. The crowds on the beach were so great that Jesus had to get into a boat to teach them and, when he did, he taught them using a series of parables. What is a parable and why did Jesus use them? The range of answers are endless. Scholar C.H. Dodd famously said a parable is “a metaphor drawn from nature or common life that arrests the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application.” Likewise, early church father, St. John of Chrysostom, argued that parables cannot be explained literally, for such an approach will only lead to absurdities. Some claim Jesus taught in parables “to reveal hidden truth,” others “to obscure the truth,” others “to teach one truth,” others “to teach many truths,” others “to undermine the truth of the world in order to liberate the Truth of God,” and others say, “all of the above.” All the while, the true purpose of the parables remains a mystery.

The parables of Jesus are seemingly simple stories that always seem to defy simplistic explanations. Even when Jesus himself offers an explanation of a parable, as he does in our text today, it leaves us with more questions than answers. It is almost as if parables were being used by Jesus to disrupt, disorient, and then to reorient his audience. Sometimes the primary audience was the disciples; sometimes it was the Pharisees, scribes, and authorities; sometimes it was the crowd, and the audience matters. In any form of communication -- speeches, books, marketing -- knowing your audience is critical to conveying your message, and Jesus knew his audience well. He developed stories based in the contextual reality of people who were living with their families in the rural agricultural society of first century Judea. Jesus told stories about laborers and land owners, farmers and seeds, workers and masters, fathers and sons, weeds and wheat, feasts and weddings, coins and sheep, judges and widows, friends and foes, © 2017 W. Benjamin Boswell

2 tenants and talents, foreigners and travelers—relationships and experiences that common people in those days would have had on a regular basis.

But Jesus’ parables were not like Greek comedies, Shakespearean tragedies, or Aesop’s fables. They do not offer us heroes and heroines or tragic figures who are simply the victims of circumstance. You cannot read them and then ask, “What is the moral of this story?” To do that is to miss the point. Parables are a form of prophetic speech that paint a picture of the world the way it is and, at the same time, offer people a vision of the kingdom of God—or should I say, the economy of God. Agriculture was the foundation of the 1st century economic system. There were landholders who owned the land and leased their property to tenants who farmed the land using laborers. Farmers then sold the livestock and produce they grew at the market, but they were required to provide the landowners with the majority of their profits. It was basically a 1st century form of feudalism. Land and wealth went hand in hand. The owners prospered. The farmers scraped by if they had a good harvest. And the laborers suffered in poverty, barely earning enough to feed themselves, let alone their families. This was the economic system in which Jesus proclaimed the new economy of God.

Why wouldn’t you want to live in the new economy of God? If you were a laborer or a farmer, it would have sounded like an incredible opportunity. The economy of God was the opposite of the economy that they were living in. It was a topsy-turvy, upside down, revolutionary economy where the last were first and the first were last, the least were greatest and the greatest were least, the poor were lifted up and the powerful were cast down, the hungry were filled and the rich were sent away empty. Why wouldn’t you want to be a part of that if you were a farmer barely scraping by or a laborer struggling to put food on the table? Maybe that’s why the crowds that followed Jesus were so large; they were filled with farmers and day laborers looking for a better world and hoping for a more just and equitable future. Given the socio-economic situation at the time, you can imagine how attractive Jesus’ message must have been. His message was literally good news for the poor and liberation for the oppressed. It’s easy to see why those in political power who owned the land and were holding the purse strings on the current economic system would have seen Jesus as a threat, but it’s hard to understand why anybody on the bottom rung didn’t immediately follow him.

Far too often, Christians have overly spiritualized Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom—the economy of God—disfiguring it by turning it into an evacuation plan—a pie in the sky eternal life insurance policy that involves saying you’re sorry for your sins, asking Jesus into your heart, and punching a one-way ticket to heaven. For many today, this is what it means to receive the good news. The problem with infusing the teachings of Jesus with this very modern view of salvation is two-fold. First, it divides body and soul from one another and assumes that salvation is only for our souls and not for our bodies. Second, and more importantly, why would any Jew—particularly a Pharisee who fervently held to the doctrine of the resurrection, care about securing eternal life when they already thought they had it! Most Jews in the 1st century believed in the resurrection. Why would they care about Jesus if he was only selling eternal life? No, Jesus was offering something far more compelling. He was offering everyone, young and old, male and female, rich and poor, abundant life for body and soul right here and now on earth in the new economy of God. © 2017 W. Benjamin Boswell

Yet, the wild thing is that people still rejected it—even people whom the current system was oppressing, like farmers and laborers. It was in their best interest to turn to live in a new economic system, and yet many people turned it down. Why? Check out the parable of the sower. This is Jesus’ way of describing the reality of the world—why some get it and others don’t—why some receive his message as good news and join in the economy of God and why others don’t. There was an extravagant farmer who went out to sow seed with reckless abandon. She was careless, imprudent, and lavish in the way that she scattered the seed. She did not cast it in well prepared soil, in a nice clean row, ten to twenty inches apart. She threw it everywhere and it landed all over the place. Some landed on a path, some landed on rocky ground, some landed among thorns, and some landed on good soil. However, regardless of her prodigal and impetuous distribution, the farmer is not the problem and neither is the seed. The central question of the parable is the soil and its receptivity. How will each kind of soil, ground, land, or earth respond to the seed? Will it receive it or will it reject it?

The soil is a metaphor for different kinds of people and the many ways people respond to the economy of God. The seed along the path that was eaten immediately by birds, are those who hear of God’s economy but do not understand; and something unholy comes and snatches away what was sown in the heart. The seed on the rocky ground that springs up quickly without depth or root and is scorched and withered by the sun, are those who hear of God’s economy and initially receive it with joy, but cannot endure when difficulty, trouble and persecution arise. The seed that put down roots and grew, but eventually was choked out by the thorns, are those who hear of God’s new economy but become asphyxiated by the cares and anxieties of the world, strangled by the love of money, and are choked by the lure of wealth in the current economic system. Finally, the seed that fell on the good soil and brought forth grain one hundred, sixty, and thirty-fold are those who hear the good news of God’s economy, understand it, put down roots, grow up to bear the fruit of a new creation, and eventually yield a great harvest. Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen!

When I was growing up, I heard this parable preached on countless times and I always felt so good to be sitting in church. I thought, it’s just terrible that there are so many lost people out there in the world who reject the good news. Thank God I’m not one of “those” people on the path, on the rocky ground, or among the thorns. I’m so glad I’m on that good soil. Somebody told me about Jesus and I said, “yes” and now I come and listen to the good news and receive it every week—just like those good people in the crowd back in Jesus’ day. Well, as it turns out with most of Jesus’ parables, we are not always where we think we are or who we think we are. Notice that those along path, on the rocky ground and among the thorns, all heard the word. That was not their problem. They heard the good news, but they never truly understood it; they didn’t put down any roots, and therefore they could not bear any fruit. In each case, there were outside forces bearing down on the soil, prohibiting the seed from being rooted in the economy of God and bearing good works of love and justice—the birds of hatred and evil, the sun of trouble and persecution, and the thorns of anxiety and wealth.

Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard, once wrote a parable about a King who issued a royal decree to everyone in his realm that contained a command which was meant to be obeyed by all © 2017 W. Benjamin Boswell

4 the people. His message, however, produced an unexpected response from his subjects. Instead of endeavoring to obey the command, they all became great interpreters of it. The leaders began creating schools to teach the King’s order to the people. Teachers held weekly study groups so that people could continue to learn the King’s order. The colleges and university professors competed to see who could write the most interesting interpretations of the King’s order and they won great prizes and important titles. Soon a prodigious body of criticism captured the imagination of all the people, who became fierce partisans of this or that position. Eventually, they broke into factions and began to host weekly celebrations to sing praises and to give thanks to the King for giving their side’s interpretation of the order. But in the meantime, while all this was going on throughout the Kingdom, no one actually bothered to follow the King’s order or to obey the King’s command.

At the end of the parable Kierkegaard asked, “How do you think the King would react when he found out?” He said the King would say, “Didn’t you hear me? I didn’t want you to just sit around and talk about the order. I wanted you to do it!” In the end, Kierkegaard said, the King was willing to forgive everything except their mistaken notion of what was truly important. There’s another parable that is more relevant to our time. A mother had four children and said to them, “Please do your homework.” The first child came back and said, “Hey mom, I memorized what you said. You said, ‘Go do your homework!’ Aren’t you proud of me?” The second child said, “Mom, mom, guess what? I learned to say, ‘Go do your homework,’ in Greek. Listen: Pigaínete na kánete tin ergasía sas.” The third child said, “You know mom, I’ve been thinking about what you told me to do, and I’ve decided I’m going to gather every week with my friends, we’re going to study your words to uncover their original intent and discuss together what it would be like if I did my homework.” The fourth child simply did the homework. Now, which child did what the Mother asked? Go and do likewise!

These parables are humorous, but how often do we act just like the people in these stories? We come to church week after week to hear what Jesus told us to do, and yet we often spend more time talking about it than doing it. Instead of praying together, we have a class to talk about the different types of prayer. Instead of doing justice together, we have a class to study what justice looks like. Only in church can we get away with this. It’s no wonder they call us hypocrites! Theologian Stanley Hauerwas claims “the church in America simply is not a soil capable of growing deep roots because most Christians in America cannot imagine how being a Christian might put them in tension with the American way of life.” He says, “Many are ready to follow Jesus until they realize it will hurt, cost them something, or require sacrifice. It is hard to be a disciple and be rich. The lure of wealth chokes our imaginations like thorns so we can see no other alternative to the world other than the way it currently is.” It is not enough to hear good news of God’s economy. It also must be received with joy so it can take root in our hearts and grow up to bear fruit in the world.

During the Samoza dictatorship in Nicaragua, a priest named Ernesto Cardenal gathered every Sunday with poor campesinos in a remote village near Lake Nicaragua called Solentiname to read the Bible together. One Sunday they gathered to discuss the parable of the sower. Father Ernesto said, “You are campesinos and you will be able to understand very well this parable of the seed. This parable is for you.” After some silence Manuel spoke, “the seed is tiny, just as the © 2017 W. Benjamin Boswell

5 good news of the kingdom seems small and insignificant.” Oscar said, “the seed grows to feed us and the good news nourishes us.” William said, “the seed is a living thing and the transmission of life that is born inside us.” Father Ernesto said, “Yes, the seed has to be buried and die to be able to be born.” Olivia said, “I think Jesus spoke of the seed because he was talking for us campesinos and not the rich. If he had been talking for the rich, he would have used examples they would have understood, but he used this example of the seed because he was talking our language. The message is for us poor people.” Felipe said, “The seed eaten by birds fell near the road, where the ground was walked on, because everybody passes there. That’s what happens to people whose minds are closed by propaganda. They get walked on because they believe whatever they hear or what everybody tells them, and the message of the kingdom doesn’t get through. They receive the message, but they go home and forget it as soon as they turn on the radio.” Julio said, “The seed alone, without the land, doesn’t do anything. So this doctrine without us is of no use. Without us, there is no kingdom.” Alejandro said, “These examples of Jesus are very clear for simple people. They say nothing to proud.” Father Ernesto asked, “Do you all agree? Is this story clear to you?” Silvester exclaimed, “Yes, now it is very clear.”

It is extraordinary that Jesus told his disciples point blank that only one in four people would understand the good news. Only 25% would be able to receive the message and 75% of the time it would fall on deaf ears. That is why many have called the parable of the sower a parable about parables. After telling the story, Jesus quoted from Isaiah 6 and said, “The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’” What did Jesus mean? Did he speak in parables to make things clearer? If so, he should have chosen a different medium. Parables don’t really make things clearer. Did he speak in parables to obscure or hide things? Why would he do that? When Jesus recalled the story of Isaiah’s call, he was claiming his mission was the same as Isaiah’s. God told Isaiah, “Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, or listen with their ears, or comprehend with their minds, but turn and be healed.” Isaiah and Jesus were not sent to help people see, hear, or understand, but to get them to stop comprehending the world the way they always had, to give them new eyes, to transform their ears, and change their minds, so they could be healed.

Albert Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. The thinking that got us here won’t get us there. We need new thinking.” Jesus spoke in parables to disrupt our current way thinking and offer us a new way of thinking. His parables reveal the problems with the way we see, hear, and comprehend the world so that we can receive the good news and imagine an alternative way of seeing, hearing, and comprehending the world by living in God’s new economy. Stories are an art form and art intentionally speaks not only to the intellect, but to the heart. They capture our imaginations through a visceral reaction, hitting us in the gut, making us feel it in our bodies, and getting into our bones. They go beyond our thinking and they root themselves deeper than the mind or what we can see or hear on the surface. They take up residence in our hearts. They are like seeds planted by a farmer in the soil of our hearts that change us and remake us from the inside out. But we have to be open to receive it. The good news cannot take root in our hearts if we are captivated by fake news, overwhelmed by our troubles, or strangled by the cares of the © 2017 W. Benjamin Boswell

6 world and the lure of wealth, but it can take root in hearts that are longing for something different, hoping for a whole new world, ready to be captured by the vision of a new reality and willing to live in the new economy of God today. Let anyone who has ears to hear, listen and live. Amen.